This blog is all about Rotherhithe, past and present. The main themes are heritage, wildlife and news items that may be of interest to local residents. If you have any questions or would like to comment or ask me to cover any particular topic you can email me at andie [at] rotherhitheblog.co.uk. I am also on Twitter @AndieByrnes

Thursday, March 6, 2014

The establishment of Canada Dock by the Surrey Commercial Dock Company in 1875

Canada Dock under construction 1875-6

After the amalgamation of the Grand Surrey Dock and Canal System and the Commercial Dock Company, to make up the Surrey Commercial Dock Company, various additions were made to the system, but the only major new investments were the construction of Canada Dock in 1875, which was completed in 1876, and the extension of Greenland Dock in the last years of the 19th Century.

Canada Dock was established
specifically to handle the larger iron vessels and their cargo. Engineer James Adair McConnochie, who had been appointed Resident Engineer to the Surrey Commercial Dock Company in 1865, was chief engineer on the project. McConnochie was a successful engineer who worked in a number of British docks and was also responsible for attractive dockside architecture like the Surrey Docks Office opposite Canada Water tube station. The dock was established on the last segment of land at the base of the peninsula, and was right up against both existing buildings along Lower Road and the immovable presence of the East London Railway. McConnochie's main challenge was to resolve problems caused by the close proximity of the East London Railway, which was semi-subterranean and could have been under threat from both subsidence and leakage from the dock, had measures not been taken to prevent it. As a result, Canada Dock was equipped with vast concrete walls. It also has a slightly curved shape, which reflects that its upper part had to be built along the line of the railway.

The Michael Rizzello sculpture on Stave Hill showing the docks as they were in 1896 before the extension of Greenland Dock. On the far left is Canada Dock with the slight kink in its shape, together with the remaining ponds.

Canada Dock replaced Albion Pond and most of Canada Pond, but Quebec Pond and Centre Pond were retained to its east. Canada Dock was connected to Albion Dock, and from there it was linked into the rest of the network. The original cut from Albion Dock into Albion Pond was too small to be suitable for the new, larger ships that Canada Dock was built to handle, so this was closed at its southern end and converted into a small dry dock. A new entrance, wider and longer, was established to its west. Canada Dock was also connected to Canada Pond, which was in turn connected to Quebec Pond and from there to Centre Pond into Russia Dock and the Grand Surrey Canal.

Due to the new entrance (or "cut") between Canada Dock and the older part of the system, the old cut became redundant and was turned into a small dry dock for the repair and maintenance of barges and lighters. This was unearthed in 2016, during construction work at the sit. The dry dock has been named locally Albion Dry Dock and has been covered on a post of its own, here. The dry dock can be seen in the photograph at the very bottom of this page.

A contemporary account from 1878 was provided by Edward Walford (Rotherhithe. Old and New London; Volume 6, pages 134-142):

"The Commercial Docks have an entrance from
the Thames, between Randall's Rents and Dog and-Duck Stairs, nearly opposite the King's Arms
Stairs in the Isle of Dogs. They are the property
of the Surrey Commercial Dock Company. A
considerable extension of their area has been made
within the last few years, with a view to meeting
the increased requirements of the timber trade
in the port of London, by the addition of a new
dock which has been named the Canada Dock.
It is 1,500 feet in length, 500 feet in width, and
has a water area of sixteen acres and a half. It
communicates with the Albion Dock by an entrance
fifty feet in width, and the quay space around is
upwards of twenty-one acres in extent."

Greenland Dock, which at that time was smaller than Canada Dock, had been the dominant of Rotherhithe's docks, but Canada Dock was much bigger and expanded the system's capacity for cargo handling and quickly began to equal Greenland Dock in importance for the Surrey Commercial Docks. It mainly handled grain and other food products imported from Canada.

Canada Dock in 1876 and 1914

If you compare the 1876 and 1914 maps, you can see how the ponds were re-arranged to enable the extension of Greenland Dock and its connection to Canada Dock. If you are using the Firefox browser you can right click and opt to open the image in a new tab, which will give you a much better view than left clicking the image. After its extension, Greenland Dock was connected to Canada Dock at the point where the current underpass to from Greenland Dock to Surrey Quays Shopping Centre passes under the road and red bascule bridge. Quebec Dock had to be truncated quite substantially to make room for the extension. This gave the most efficient linkage so far between the two systems that had formerly been separate and operated by competing companies.

Canada Water was closed when the Surrey Commercial Docks finally failed and were shut down for good in 1970. The Surrey Quays shopping centre car park
takes up much of the land that this occupied, with a small section of
the dock left behind to serve as a wildlife reserve. Amazingly, it was under threat from developers recently, but public reaction saved it from being destroyed.

Canada Water in 1996, the last patch that remains of Canada Dock, asit was during the construction of the Jubilee Line station, alsocalled Canada Water. The Albion Dry Dock is shown at far left, centre.Photo from the London Docklands Past and Present site at (http://bit.ly/MQ4NRT)

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I have assembled all my posts concerning the history and heritage of South Dock into a website of its own, which seemed to be a requirement following the announcement of the St George's Wharf development that will overshadow the South Dock area. It can be found at:http://southdockse16.wordpress.com

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British Transport Treasures

This blog is run with considerable assistance from excellent local history publications written by Stuart Rankin. His works are my starting point for all history posts. Stuart has set up a website, called British Transport Treasures, that specializes in out of print publications which can be downloaded as PDFs that can be saved and printed. Out of print publications are a nightmare for anyone attempting local history research unless they have access to a specialist library and archives. British Transport Treasures is expanding fast with an ever-growing catalogue of titles. Each of the publications is described with a magazine-style short review to explain the scope of the content, and provided with a preview of the cover and first page. There is a nominal cost for each, to cover the costs of hosting and running the site, and 5p per item sold is donated to Help For Heroes. I am a massive fan of the site and what it is attempting to do, and as it has a number of publications concerning Rotherhithe I have drawn attention to some of them here.